Britain’s Labor Party is heading for a landslide victory in parliamentary elections on Thursday, an exit poll suggested, as voters punished the governing Conservatives after 14 years of economic and political turmoil.
The poll, released shortly after voting closed, shows centre-left Labor leader Keir Starmer will be the country’s next prime minister. He will face a jaded electorate impatient for change, against a bleak backdrop of economic malaise, increasing distrust in institutions and a fraying social fabric.
Also read: 2024 UK general election: Labor wins the first electoral seat to be declared, Reform UK in second
The historic defeat for the Conservatives leaves the party exhausted and in disarray and is likely to spark a battle to replace Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as leader.
“Nothing has gone right in the last 14 years,” said London voter James Erskine, who was optimistic about changes in the hours before polls closed. “I just see this as the potential for a seismic shift, and that’s what I’m hoping for.”
While the proposed outcome appears to counter recent right-wing electoral shifts in Europe, including in France and Italy, many of the same populist undercurrents are also flowing into Britain. Britain’s reform leader Nigel Farage has sparked the race with his party’s anti-immigrant “take our country back” sentiment, undermining support for the Conservatives’ already bleak prospects.
According to the exit poll, Labor is on course to win around 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 131. That would be the fewest seats for the Tories in their almost two-century history and would leave the party in disarray.
Former Conservative leader William Haag said the poll indicated a “catastrophic outcome in historical terms for the Conservative Party”.
Yet Labor politicians, used to years of disappointment, were cautious and the full results remained hours away.
“The exit poll is encouraging, but obviously we don’t have any results yet,” vice-president Angela Rayner told Sky News.
In a sign of the unstable public mood and anger at the system, some smaller parties appeared to have done well, including the centrist Liberal Democrats and Farage’s Reform UK.
The poll is conducted by pollster Ipsos and asks people at dozens of polling stations to fill out a replica ballot paper showing how they voted. It usually provides a reliable but not exact projection of the end result.
Britain has gone through a series of turbulent years – some of which the Conservatives themselves caused, and some of which they did not – which has left many voters pessimistic about their country’s future. Britain’s departure from the European Union, followed by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have ravaged the economy, while then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his staff’s lockdown-breaking moves sparked widespread anger.
Johnson’s successor, Liz Truss, further upended the economy with a package of drastic tax cuts and only lasted 49 days in office. Rising poverty and cuts to state services have led to complaints about ‘Broken Britain’
Hundreds of communities were locked in a fierce battle in which traditional party loyalties took a back seat to more immediate concerns about the economy, crumbling infrastructure and the National Health Service.
In Henley-on-Thames, about 40 miles west of London, voters like retiree Patricia Mulcahy felt the nation was looking for something different. The community, which normally votes conservatively, may change course this time.
“The younger generation is much more interested in change,†Mulcahy said. “So I think whatever happens in Henley, in the country, there will be a big shift. But no matter who steps in, there’s a big job ahead. It won’t be easy.â€
In the first hour the polls were open, Sunak made the short journey from his home to vote at Kirby Sigston Village Hall in northern England. He arrived with his wife, Akshata Murty, and walked hand in hand into the village hall, which is surrounded by rolling fields.
Labor has held a stable and significant lead in the opinion polls for months, but leaders warned in recent days not to take the election result for granted as they feared their supporters would stay home.
“Change. Today you can vote for it,” leader Starmer wrote on the social media platform X on Thursday.
A few hours after posting that message, Starmer walked with his wife Victoria to a polling station in north London to cast his vote. He left through a back door, out of sight of a crowd of residents and journalists who had gathered.
Labor has failed to set pulses racing with its promises to grow the sluggish economy, invest in infrastructure and make Britain a ‘clean energy superpower’.
But nothing really went wrong in the campaign. The party has won the backing of large sections of the business community and support from traditionally conservative newspapers, including Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid Sun, which praised Starmer for “dragging his party back to the center of British politics.”
Former Labor candidate Douglas Beattie, author of the book ‘How Labor Wins (and Why it Loses)’, said Starmer’s “quiet stability probably reflects the mood of the country at the moment.”
The Conservatives, meanwhile, are plagued by blunders. The campaign got off to an inauspicious start when Sunak was drenched in rain as he made the announcement outside 10 Downing St. Sunak then headed home early from commemorations in France to mark the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion.
Several Conservatives close to Sunak are under investigation over suspicions that they used inside information to place bets on the date of the election before it was announced.
Sunak has struggled to shake off the stain of political chaos and mismanagement that has accumulated around the Conservatives.
But for many voters, the lack of trust applies not only to the ruling party, but to politicians in general.
“I don’t know who is there for me as a working person,” said Michelle Bird, a dock worker in Southampton on England’s south coast, who did not know whether to vote Labor or Conservative. “I don’t know if it’s the devil you know or the devil you don’t know.”
